Blog Post #2

I am now about two weeks into the summer portion of the internship, and things have been going great! I have officially began two important projects that will last the length of the summer, and have been informed that these are some of the two most important functions of the campaign. Our finance director had a one-on-one with me and informed me that I was specifically chosen due to my experience on the campaign, and the skills I have demonstrated during my months as a finance intern. The first task involves taking a spreadsheet of our contributions that we receive each week, and applying the proper source code to each contribution. This is important because it allows both members of our campaign and consultants in D.C. to easily see where each contribution comes from, and what ways of raising funds are bringing in the most money for our campaign. The second, and more important task is what’s called “pledge follow-up.” Often when our candidate makes fundraising calls people want to give our campaign money, but they can’t do it at the time of the call for various reasons. These people typically will pledge a certain amount of money to our candidate which is saved, and passed along to me. My job is to recontact these people at a later date and to fulfill their pledge. This involved me directly raising large amounts of money through phone calls, and through this task alone I have raised well over $1,500 for the campaign. These tasks have given me a great sense of importance within the campaign, and it’s very exciting to see the direct positive impact that my work has on the campaign.